Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

Chapter One

Chapter One

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There could not have been found in his parish, which was a large one, a prouder or happier man than Richard Tippens, on the day when he took possession of the house which had been tenanted by Doctor Jones.

Never a better fellow drew breath than Mr. Richard Tippens. A good son, a loving husband, a fond father, his worst enemy could only say of him he had two faults—one, a tendency to be extra generous; the other, a perhaps undue fondness for an extra glass. But, earning money by the pocketful, as d**k did in those days, when there were fewer cabs and buses than at present, no tramcars, no Metropolitan or daylight route railway, to be free-handed seemed a virtue rather than a sin; whilst a man who had to be out in all weathers, and the period of whose meals was as uncertain as the climate, could scarcely be blamed for yielding to the solicitations of sporting or commercial-gent fares, and his own inclination, in the matter of little “gos” of rum and half-quarterns of gin, and whisky cold without, or with “just a drop of hot water and one lump of sugar, my dear, as my fingers is stiff with cold.”

Mr. Tippens was a cheery fellow, with a jolly, honest, laughing face, merciful to the cattle he drove, proud of his newly-painted cab, of his silver-plated harness, of a fresh horse he had just bought, and—oh, far, far prouder of all—of having got the old house which Doctor Jones lived in, for so many a long and wicked year, for a mere song in the way of rent. It was precisely the sort of place he had been looking out for, he could scarcely remember how long; an old-fashioned house—not a grand old-fashioned house altogether above their position, but a rambling, ramshackle building, with a wide staircase, and lots of cupboards, and plenty of rooms they could let off to great advantage, and large cellars, and a paved yard at the back, where were also stables, and coach-house, and lofts, and wash-house, and brew-house, and ever so many other odd little places, telling unconsciously of the time when people, and things, and ways were different from what they are now; when wood enough for the whole winter had to be laid in at once, and bread was baked at home, and flitches of bacon were laid in the racks, and such modern innovations as tradesmen calling every day for orders, ladies only spending about thirty minutes a week in their kitchens, and no mistress's store-room, were matters still undreamt of.

“It is a splendid house,” Mr. Richard Tippens joyfully exclaimed, when, opening the door with his own key, he walked into the premises with the old creature who was to do the repairs for him.

“Fit for any gentleman,” capped the person in question, the accuracy of whose ideas on any social subject of that sort was indeed open to doubt, for he had only one definite notion on earth, and that was beer. His point of view was the nearest tap, and any road which led to the desired haven seemed to him filled with better company than the Row in the season.

He had been in a yard where d**k Tippens, then owning no horses of his own, was fain to work under a cab proprietor.

“I have known poor old Mickey,” d**k was wont to say, “for a matter of thirty years, on and off you know, and ever since I was as high as that,” and the great burly fellow would indicate a height a child of five might have scoffed at. But d**k did not add how many a six-pence, and shilling, and half-crown, and good warm dinner had found their way to old Mickey since he met with the accident (when he was drunk) which made him for ever after a dependent on the charity of the ratepayers and the liberality of those who could remember him when he was earning from “thirty-three to forty bob a week, besides gettings.” That Mickey, while in receipt of this princely income, might have put aside a trifle to help him over that rainy day, induced by “the cussedest brute that ever lashed out without a sign of warning,” was an idea which never seemed to occur either to the various relieving officers he was under or to the many friends who “stood treat.”

Neither was any weight attached to the horse's view of the question. How Michael himself would have liked his own toilet performed with the aid of a pitchfork, which was the implement he had taken up, apparently under the impression it was a curry-comb, nobody inquired. All that his own public considered was that Mickey, once the weekly recipient of “thirty-three to forty bob and gettings,” which latter item probably amounted to as much more, had to go on the parish and feel thankful for half-crowns from the Board, and such odd jobs as Heaven, more merciful than the abhorred Board, put in his way.

For the rest he was a drunken, dissolute, lying, discontented, carneying old vagabond, who thrived on the kindness and folly of men like d**k Tippens, who likewise was not laying by a farthing but spending such of his superfluous cash as did not go in the best of good eating and drinking and smoking in the purchase of useless articles of various kinds, in fine household linen and damask, in a large stock of clothes for himself, which he could not possibly wear out before they grew old-fashioned, in shawls and dresses for his wife, each and all destined eventually to find their way to the pawnbroker as surely and infallibly as the sparks fly upwards.

For apparently a mere trifle, “just a bite of food, or a half-pint of beer, or an old pair of cast-off boots, or a coat you don't care to be seen about in any longer yourself, even in the worst of weather,” thus, “poor old Mickey”; “or just whatever you are pleased to give me; or nothing at all, Mr. Tippens. I'll make the place clean and sweet for you. There is little here I can't do, except maybe the roof and a bit of bricklaying, that needs standing on a high ladder, or the pipes mending, or the gutter seeing to; but leave that all to me, plenty will be glad to earn a shilling or two, and I know where to go to look for them; don't you trouble yourself at all. Which had we best make a start with, the house, d'ye think, or the yard?”

Mr. Tippens thought the house. Once he was on the premises he could see to a bit of the loft and stables himself, and give Mike a helping hand; and his wife was all agog to get in, and put the place to rights while the fine weather lasted; and he had some fresh lodgers now, only waiting till he could take them in; and the children, poor things, were wild at the thought of the yard and the out-buildings.

“And fine children they are too,” answered the worthy Michael; “but there, what would hinder them? You're not an ill-favoured man yourself, Mr. Tippens, and I mind the time when all the girls were setting their caps at you, and the like of your wife for beauty never stepped. The very sight of her seems to do my old eyes good, like the sunshine on a bright May morning. She always minds me somehow of primroses and violets and bluebells, and the scent of the wallflowers that used to grow along on the low wall of my father's garden down in Surrey,” and as he uttered these poetical similes, Michael's watery eyes wistfully followed the movements of Mr. Tippens' right hand while it fumbled in his pocket for a shilling, to bestow on the “poor old fellow, who had neither chick nor child, nor one belonging to him.”

The expenditure of whitewash in that house was something awful; Westminster Abbey or the Tower of London could scarcely have required a larger outlay in whiting.

“You have no idea,” said Mike, “of the quantity of wash them ceilings needs”—which, indeed, Mr. Tippens had not—floors, walls, and Mickey himself also received coat after coat; and the dust, according to the ex-helper's account, was so awful he was forced to keep a pot of beer constantly beside him, in one of the cupboards, to take a sip of at frequent intervals to prevent his choking.

At last, however, even Mike felt it would be dangerous any longer to defer announcing the completion of the repairs. He was brought to this state of mind by a visit from Mrs. Tippens, who, after declaring in tones not much like the birds in spring that she could have done the work herself in a quarter of the time, said, “Done or undone, she meant to have the ‘cleaning’ begun on the following Monday,” when she requested the favour of Mike's room instead of his company.

She saw clearly enough that individual was in a fuddled state, and whether the intoxication was produced by beer, or gin, or whitewash, or the lead in the paint, did not signify to her; even the praise of her children only elicited the answer that they were “well enough,” and a more elaborate tribute to her own charms failed to soften the asperity with which she told him to “hold his tongue.”

“I expect that Mickey has taken you in nicely, d**k,” she said to her husband that night.

“Oh, it hasn't cost me so much,” answered Mr. Tippens easily; “there was a whole lot of things to do.”

As indeed he found when the rainy months and the snow came, and the water poured from the spouts, all of which leaked, and the wet soaked through the broken tiles that had never been replaced; and it was found necessary to open all the drains.

Long before winter arrived, however, Mrs. Tippens discovered that not a lock or bolt in the house worked properly; that the paint had only been smeared on the woodwork; that the whole of the repairs, in fact, had consisted in further dilapidation of the coats of Mr. Mike's stomach; and that almost all the money paid by her husband for “labour,” “material,” “extra help,” “hire of ladders,” “use of pulley,” and so forth, had been spent over the counter of the “Guy Faux” tavern, situated round a near and convenient corner.

Meeting Mike one day, her just indignation found utterance, and, with feminine frankness, she reproached him for having deceived a man who had been so kind to him as her husband. Mrs. Tippens was in no sense of the word a shrew, but she could upon occasion speak out her mind, and on this occasion she did speak it very plainly.

Mike never attempted to deny the charge, he only tried to turn it into a victory by a strategic movement likely to divert her attention.

“What was the use,” asked the hoary sinner, “of spending good money fitting a house up like a palace I knew you would never be able to live in?”

“What would hinder us living in it?” retorted Mrs. Tippens, more in the way of comment than inquiry.

“What would hinder you?—Why old Mrs. Jones, to be sure; she'll never let anybody live in the house till her bones are dug up out of the hole where her husband buried her.”

“Oh, don't talk to me of your Mrs. Joneses!” exclaimed Mrs. Tippens, to whom the name was evidently not new. “At any rate, I never did any harm to the woman—never saw her, to my knowledge, so it's not likely she would come troubling me.”

“She troubles everybody that tries to live in the house you're so set up with. Why, the last people did not stop a fortnight. It's well known she walks the place over, from the second floor down; and, if you take my advice, you won't go into the back-cellar alone after night.”

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